


Choose Something Like a Star

by DonnesCafe



Series: Celestial Navigation [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Constellations, M/M, Mind Palace, Post-Reichenbach, Stars, Torture, not s3 compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 14:38:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2232708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DonnesCafe/pseuds/DonnesCafe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is imprisoned in Pakistan post-Reichenbach. He looks for a place of retreat in his mind palace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choose Something Like a Star

**Author's Note:**

> I seem to want to write more in this universe, so I'm making it into a series. This is from Sherlock's POV during his imprisonment and gives some insight into what happened to him during this time. Takes place between part 1 ("Starry Night") and part 2 ("Attired with Stars") and immediately precedes the events of part 2. Won't make much sense if you haven't read 1 and 2 first.
> 
> About the warnings, rape/non-con/underage incident happens off-stage to an OC and is implied but not explicit.

_We may choose something like a star_  
 _to stay our minds on and be staid._  


Robert Frost, “Choose something like a star”  


~~~~~  


If he stood on tiptoe, he could see a slanted bit of sky through the small curve of stone cut in the wall, through the bars. Flexing his ankles drove shards of pain through him, brought raw flesh into contact with the irons. He held his stance, but braced both hands against the rough walls of the cell to take some of the weight off his legs. He needed to look at the sky. 

Sherlock took a deep breath. Focus on the blackness beyond the pain. Soft, velvet, indifferent darkness. The sky had not seen what he had just seen. The stars were still clean and, mercifully, far away from this. He hadn’t seen the sky in days. Weeks, perhaps. He had lost track of time. 

He knew he was going to die. They never put prisoners in cells alone unless they were slated for execution. Ironic that the death cells had windows. Did his captors have some shred of humanity, that they let the condemned have one last night of quiet, a glimpse of sky? Or was it another subtle form of mental abuse? 

They had broken him, and he had finally cried and begged. Not for himself. Focus. It was done, could not be undone, he was done. It was his fault. He should never have let the boy come with him. Caring was never an advantage. He had tried to escape, had planned it meticulously. Then the boy had seen and begged to come. The boy they used again and again, night after night. The boy who trusted him. The boy who slowed him down. They had… they had… they 

Heedless of the blood and bruises that covered it, he leaned his forehead against the stone wall, between his hands. Don’t think of it. Don't think. He fought. Useless. Then he begged them not to hurt the child. He begged in Arabic. In Urdu. In Pashto. In English. 

Tears mixed with blood on his face. Focus. He needed a new anchor in his mind palace to carry him through what was coming. John had been his anchor, buried deep in his mind. Memories of steady, dark-blue eyes, the quirk of lips meant only for him, the quick laugh, the short ashy hair that he had longed to touch but never did. When the random beatings and abuse had threatened to overwhelm him, he retreated to the lounge room he had recreated at the heart of his mind palace. He could see every book. Feel the heat from the fireplace. There was always a fire. He could taste the tea. Mrs. Hudson usually made Darjeeling. John favored Irish breakfast. He could see John sitting in his chair. He had planned to die looking into John’s eyes, but that wouldn’t be possible. He couldn’t face John now. The boy’s death was his fault, and his own death was coming. His fingers dug into stone. 

To face his death with any sort of dignity, he needed another image, another interior retreat. He lifted his head and opened his eyes, lifted himself again to look into the night. There. He didn’t believe in God or eternal life, but he did believe in beauty. Alpha Andromedae and Gamma Andromedae glowed through the bars of his cell, beautiful, remote, above blood and filth and pain and death. He began to construct the constellation at the heart of his mind palace. He would place himself there. 

Alpha and Gamma in the constellation Andromeda were both binary stars, so bright that they are visible to the naked eye. Beta was also visible, Sherlock noted – a red giant so colorful that he could see it without a telescope. He pulled facts, comforting facts, down with him into the hidden depths of his mind. Ptolemy, Johann Bode, Messier objects, the latitudes for best viewing, the declination between 53.19 degrees and 21.68 degrees…. Time stopped, and he floated above pain, unmoored from memory in a ocean of light and numbers. 

~~~~~  


“English, English!” One of the guards was shouting and turning him roughly by the shoulder. Sherlock came up from the depths, trailing star charts and mathematical formulae. Sunlight filtered through the small window. He didn’t know the guard’s name. He didn’t deserve a name. He was one of the… one of 

Sherlock spat in his face. Then he reached out and tried very hard to break the guard's filthy neck. Might as well die here. The second guard hit him in the head with the butt of his gun, and Sherlock fell to the ground, stunned. 

He tried to retreat into his mind again. In Chinese astronomy, Gamma Andromedae represented honor. Some of Andromeda's stars formed another constellation in Arabic astronomy, _al-Hut_ in Arabic. The fish. Adhil, another of Andromeda’s binaries, is 217 light years away from earth. HH Andromedae is the ninth closest star to Earth. 

They hauled him to his feet and turned him to the door. 

“It is fortunate for you that I decided to sell you." 

Colonel Yazdani’s English was impeccable, Sherlock thought, surfacing reluctantly from recalling the arcseconds that separated the primary star and the blue-green secondary of Almach. Probably Oxbridge. 

"Yes, Sherlock Holmes, I finally determined your identity. What a waste if they had killed you. Or raped and killed you. That’s much more likely since you are quite attractive for an Englishman, even in your present state.” 

_al-Mar’at al Musalsalah,_ thought Sherlock. Andromeda in Arabic, the chained woman. Andromeda was the chained one. Chained to a rock, left for the monster. How ironic, since he had gotten into this by trying to bring down a human trafficker. He was being sold. Bile rose in his throat. 

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Yazdani, all smooth urbanity. Sherlock was ashamed that his face must be utterly unguarded. 

“Your brother has much more money than any of our usual clients. And I’m sure he would be upset with me were you not returned to him intact.” Yazdani’s eyes swept down Sherlock’s frame, taking in the matted hair, the bruises on his forehead, the bloody shirt clinging to his chest, the chains on his feet. “Well, relatively intact.” 

“Mycroft?” The name escaped him, and he was ashamed again; he hated himself for the hope that trembled in his voice, for saying that name to this vile man who smiled at him so coolly. Where were his defenses? 

“He must value you greatly. He has made me a rich man.” 

Suddenly, in spite of everything, Sherlock felt an almost infinitesimal smile lift one corner of his mouth. He quickly suppressed it. The Colonel must know very little about his brother. Yazdani wouldn’t live long enough to enjoy his riches, whether or not Sherlock got out of this alive. 

He straightened his spine and lifted his chin. Andromeda saved from the monsters once again. Mycroft had been saving him from them since a memorable night when he had routed several of them from underneath the bed of a sobbing three-year-old. Afterwards, Mycroft sat in a chair by that bed and told him, in a voice that even then was cool and calming, about Perseus and various other monster-slayers. His brother swore that he would deal severely with any monsters so foolish as to threaten Sherlock. So far, he had been as good as his word. Perhaps he would be kinder to Mycroft from now on. Just a bit kinder.


End file.
